


Hold Up

by Beg_YourPardon



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluffy angst? is that a thing?, Fun facts: the band a-ha comes from oslo apparently, Multi, Road Trips, The Max/Melchior stuff is one-sided, Yeah it's another one based on the askverse, askverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 03:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15380109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beg_YourPardon/pseuds/Beg_YourPardon
Summary: Max should be enjoying the road trip with three of his favorite people in the world. And he is, really. It's just that one of those favorite people (Melchior Gabor) happens to be occupying a space in his brain that is usually reserved for those other two people (his boyfriend and girlfriend), and he doesn't really know what to make of it.





	Hold Up

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I'm back with another fic based on the rp group that includes [ask-melchior-gabor](http://ask-melchior-gabor.tumblr.com) and [ask-max-von-trenk](http://ask-max-von-trenk.tumblr.com). What can I say, I can't get enough. Once again, this is not a stab at canon, nor is it affiliated with the ask blogs themselves, I simply wanted to write using their characters and situations. Please enjoy!  
> Title comes from Beyoncé's Hold Up

Max has a problem.

Well, he’s got a few. More than a few. Max has a lot of problems. But this one is...newer. Relatively speaking. And it’s been on his mind more and more lately.

Anyway, here it is:

In times like these (these being now, now being Max filling up his car with gas for the long trip ahead of them), he’ll let his eyes and his mind wander over to Melchior Gabor (who is currently slumped against the passenger side door and completely asleep). It’s not that he didn’t think about Melchior before (how could he not - Melchior was a walking provoked thought, impossible to get out of his head). It’s that in times like these, his thoughts about Melchior have been less about wondering and more about...wanting. Maybe. He’s not sure what exactly he wants, but that feeling keeps creeping into his mind.

So he does things like stand there and stare at a sleeping Melchior even though his equally adorable girlfriend and boyfriend are tangled up in the backseat. But that’s not that much of a problem, he’ll tell anyone that he cares about Melchior just as much as anyone else, and that seeing him in this defenseless and worry-free state is rare and a moment worth watching. So that doesn’t constitute Max’s problem.

And the problem isn’t that he loves Melchior. He’s known that for a while, and Melchior knows it, too. After all, Max is of the firm belief that love is not exclusively tied to romance, and he’s lucky enough that his friends feel that way as well. He can tell pretty much any of them that he loves them without it seeming strange (well, perhaps it seems strange to their incredibly nosy followers, but he’s gotten very good at ignoring people that just want to stir things up). So he tells Melchior he loves him every so often, and Melchior says it sometimes as well (although less than Max would like to hear - maybe that is part of the problem). So the problem doesn’t lie in the fact that he loves Melchior, but maybe it lies somewhat in the fact that when Max says “I love you,” it has started to mean something else. And it surely means something different from what Melchior means when he says it. 

So maybe Max can’t explicitly articulate his problem, but that fits pretty well with the problem itself, and the fact that he can’t explicitly articulate at all what he feels when he thinks about Melchior. Or when he looks at Melchior. Or really anything involving Melchior. It’s called a problem for a reason.

Max finishes filling up the car and gets back into his seat, shutting the door next to him. The sound of the slam rouses Melchior from his sleep (although Bobby and Ilse seem oblivious). Melchior stares at Max for a moment with his sleepy eyes.

“What?”

“How long have you been driving?” Melchior asks, although the end of his sentence is swallowed up into a yawn as he stretches his arms up over his head, touching the ceiling.

“Not very long,” Max says, turning the key in the ignition.

“Really? Because it’s three in the morning.” Melchior begins to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m driving. Switch with me.”

“Chior, I’m fine, honestly-” but Melchior has already opened his door and started walking around to Max’s side. Max sighs, which becomes something of a yawn, and obliges, climbing into the passenger’s seat. Something about the way the car moves under him, or perhaps the fact that he’s been driving for too many hours straight means that he falls asleep, well, pretty much instantly, leaving Melchior to the wheel.

It’s a few hours later when Max wakes up, probably due to the morning sunlight streaming in all around him. He’s relieved to note that they have not crashed. He remembers vaguely being woken up when they crossed the border to - somewhere, but his brain’s still foggy from being fully asleep just moments before. He knows they’ve been going north, or at least, that’s the direction they were going in before he fell asleep.

“Where are we?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” Melchior says, not taking his eyes off of the road. “We’re in Sweden. Don’t ask me to tell you what town, because I have no idea.”

“Sweden?” Max takes a good look out the window, and he’s no expert, but the signage and the foliage and the coast in the distance all sure do look Swedish. “I thought you wanted to go to Copenhagen.”

“I do,” Melchior says. “I mean, I did. And technically, we were there. But I didn’t really know where I should go or where I should have parked the car or really anything about the city, and no one was awake, so I just kept driving. But now we’re only about two hours from Oslo, if that interests you at all.”

They hear laughter from the backseat and Melchior almost turns around, but remains firmly focused.

“You drove us to an entirely different country because you were too awkward to wake anyone up to help you figure out where you were going.”

“I didn’t realize you were awake, princess.”

“You can’t imagine the kind of stress I was under,” Melchior shoots back.

“Of course I’m awake. Do you think I’d want to miss all of this sightseeing?”

Max let himself fall into the easy banter that soon filled the car, despite the fact that everyone was exhausted. Well, not everyone - Bobby snoring happily, his head in Ilse’s lap. 

What Max really wants to do is let that easy feeling slide over him - the one he always gets when he’s around the people he loves. And it comes, but he’s more distracted by that nagging voice - that  _ problem _ in the back of his mind, and he’s thinking less about how ridiculous Melchior is and more about how he really wishes he could understand how he feels. It’s absurd and distracting and fully irrational, as Melchior might say, but like an itch, the more he thinks about it, the worse it gets.

He doesn’t even notice when they stop the car for lunch because he’s so lost in thought. Melchior snaps his fingers in front of Max’s face, signing his name for good measure, and Ilse shakes his shoulder.

“Did you get enough sleep?” She asks, and her easygoing smile is laced with concern.

“Yeah,” Max says, “I’m fine.”

“If you say so.” Ilse kisses him and he lets himself get drawn away from his thoughts and back to reality. They’re on a trip to have a good time, not to get bogged down with feelings. He can snap out of this.

And he does, at least for the afternoon, when they split up to explore the city. Hell, even when they all meet up for dinner, he’s not thinking about it at all. He manages to not even think about it when Melchior’s doing that cute thing where he gushes about whatever he’s excited about (apparently he had an  _ excellent _ time in the art gallery). It probably helps him that Bobby and Ilse are just as distractingly excited, and that he’s had a little something to drink and his mind is too soft and warm to really focus on the negatives. They’re having a great fucking trip. 

Max isn’t surprised at all that Melchior is there when he finally comes back to their hotel room. After all, he’s been with Bobby and Ilse all night and hasn’t seen Melchior since he got dragged onto the dance floor by a gaggle of Norwegian girls. He’s not surprised that Melchior managed to worm his way out of there, and is now sitting on one of the two beds in the room, scribbling in his journal.   

“What are you writing?” Max asks as he takes off his shoes and instinctively comes over to sit next to Melchior.

“Huh? Nothing,” Melchior says, slipping his pen in between the pages of the journal and tying it closed.

“That’s new.”

“What?”

“You not sharing what you’re writing about, which means it’s something juicy, which makes me want to know even more.” Melchior’s hand squeezes around the journal.

“It’s not really juicy. It’s about Moritz. You can read it if you are really so inclined.” Melchior holds the book towards Max, but Max shakes his head.

“No, that’s okay. I’ll stay out of your relationship drama or whatever.” Melchior shrugs.

“It’s not really drama if nothing’s happening.”

Max slides up closer to Melchior on the bed until their arms are touching. Max has learned that a little physical comfort and good listening skills can go a long way.

“It’s kind of out of character for you to be so quiet about what’s bothering you, but you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.” He feels Melchior’s head on his shoulder, and Melchior leans more of his weight onto Max.

“I don’t know what I would say.” It’s more to himself than to Max, so Max doesn’t respond. He leans his head to the side and plants a kiss somewhere on Melchior’s forehead. Melchior turns to look at him, and a soft smile graces his face despite how tired his eyes look. Without thinking too much about how it’s going to add to his problem, Max leans to kiss Melchior on the lips. It’s short and it’s soft and it’s not the first time it’s happened (Max is a very affectionate creature and Melchior’s boundaries are virtually nonexistent), but Melchior furrows his brow when he pulls away from Max.

What’s even stranger is that after he pulls away, he slides his free hand behind Max’s head and pulls him closer so that they can kiss again. Problem or not, Max wants to just slide into the kiss and melt against Melchior’s lips, but even though he’s a little more than tipsy, he knows he shouldn’t. He puts a hand on Melchior’s shoulder to stop him.

“What?”

“I know this is going to sound so hypocritical, but I don’t want you doing anything you’ll regret.” Max doesn’t say that he doesn’t want to do anything that he’ll regret either, and letting himself kiss Melchior definitely falls into the category of things he’ll probably regret.

“Who says I’m going to regret it? It’s just kissing, isn’t it?”

Max should say something. Max should say something practical, like “that isn’t how your boyfriend would see it,” or something insightful, like “you’re doing this because you’re not in your usual state of mind.” Max could even say something honest, like “I’m scared that it isn’t just kissing for me.”

But instead he says something stupid. He says “I guess you’re right,” and lets Melchior pull him closer. He lets the feeling in his lips drown out every part of his brain that’s nagging him not to do this. He lets Melchior, the boy who’s probably only doing this because his boyfriend isn’t there instead, kiss him like he means something. Max wishes he does. Max wishes he meant everything to Melchior, and that Melchior meant everything to him. But when they pull away, neither does. Max knows that. Whatever his problem is, it isn’t bigger than his love for his partners, or his desire to see Melchior happy. And Melchior’s crying, so Max just does the only thing he really knows how to do. He pulls Melchior’s head to rest on his chest and holds him like that until Melchior’s breaths even out in sleep.

So, Max still has a problem.


End file.
